Day: September 11, 2017

Today I am one of the two stops on the blog tour for The Lost Causes written by Jessica Etting & Alyssa Schwartz. This is a Rockstar Book Tours. Today I will be sharing my review. At the end of this post, you can enter to win one of three copies of The Lost Causes (Us and Canada only).

Book Description:

They’re the kids that no one knows — or no one wants to know. The rich depressive, the OCD chick, the hypochondriac, the drug abuser, the athlete with anger management issues. All chosen for intensive group therapy because they’re out of other options. They’re lost causes, the therapist tells them. She promises this support group will help them heal.

There’s only one problem. She’s not a therapist. And that water she offers? It contains a dangerous serum that gives each of the kids a psychic power.

Suddenly, they can think clearly, speak to ghosts, see the past, even move objects with their mind. Their earlier problems have vanished, but their new freedom comes with a price.

Sabrina, Gabby, Z, Justin and Andrew are to help the FBI solve the grisly murder that has rocked their small town. Their new powers will help them uncover clues and follow leads that have eluded the authorities. Their outsider status gives them the perfect cover.

But the same traits that make them top investigators also make them vulnerable. As they close in on the murderer, they expose a much larger conspiracy that puts them directly in harm’s way and makes them wonder who — if anyone — they can trust.

The Lost Causes is not one I would have picked up myself and I was glad I was sent an arc copy! This is the book any teenager (and even those older) will love. I wish I had been able to read this when I was a teenager.

The Lost Causes is about a group of misfit teens (similar to The Breakfast Club). They are teenagers who are considered ‘lost causes’ that no one seems to care about and they all have their own issues. They are then given special abilities and the FBI pulls them into a murder case to help solve. Here is where you need to totally suspend your belief in reality. There is no chance this could actually happen. Every bit of the novel is outlandish and unbelievable, but it is in a great way! I did not want to put it down at all and you go on a roller coaster where one thing happens then something else happens. I didn’t know who was going to end up being the killer and then we have that ending! I really hope this is to become a series as I became attached to all of our ‘Lost Causes’. I need more stories with this group of teenagers!

This is a book I would definitely recommend for teenagers. Every teen feels like they don’t belong anywhere at some point in their life and this book covers those feelings and giving our ‘lost causes’ these abilities makes them important and special which all teens have that need. Yes, there is some teen drama and a totally inappropriate relationship, but it’s a book about teenagers so you are going to get that.

The Lost Causes is a young adult thriller with paranormal twists. It’s different from what I usually read, but I really enjoyed it. It is 100% recommended.

Thank you to KCP Loft for sending me a print arc and NetGalley for my e-arc copies.

About the Authors:

Hi, we’re Jessica & Alyssa!

We’re best pal writing partners who have been obsessed with reading since we each used to hoard The Babysitters Club books in our bedrooms across the country from one another in Los Angeles (Jess) and Virginia (Lyss).

We finally met on the first day of college at USC, long enough ago that Rocket Dog platform flip-flops were fully acceptable night-out shoes and our biggest life decision was whether to watch Dawson’s Creek or Beverly Hills, 90210 on Wednesday nights (90210, obviously).

​We started writing together right after college when we took the “write what you know” adage to heart and wrote a TV pilot that sold to Fox about how life sucks when you’re 22, broke and a freshman in life. We spent the next many, many years writing for TV and film before we jumped into the book world, a major lifelong dream of ours.

​The number one question everyone always asks us is how we write as a team so here’s the rundown…After being best friends and writing together for so long, our brains now officially occupy a shared space. Ninety percent of the time, we know what the other person is going to say before she even opens her mouth. Our husbands think it’s creepy, but we think it’s awesome. After this many years, we’ve honed it to a pretty efficient process….except for when we digress on Facetime to catch each other up on the few hours we weren’t in contact with each other (which takes especially long if we’ve both finished the same book and need to discuss, if one of us needs justification for an argument we picked with our husband or if we’ve discovered a new hair product, self-tanner or blog).